I don't think an authoritative answer exists ( a canonical source spelling out in detail what breaks the 5th precept under which circumstances ). You are only going to get personal opinions, which likely will be self serving for the giver of that opinion.

My personal opinion is that I don't drink and that I personally wouldn't let an occasional dish prepared with small amounts of alcohol bother me.

In reading the scriptures, there are two kinds of mistakes:One mistake is to cling to the literal text and miss the inner principles.The second mistake is to recognize the principles but not apply them to your own mind, so that you waste time and just make them into causes of entanglement.

Jhana4 wrote:I don't think an authoritative answer exists ( a canonical source spelling out in detail what breaks the 5th precept under which circumstances ). You are only going to get personal opinions, which likely will be self serving for the giver of that opinion.

My personal opinion is that I don't drink and that I personally wouldn't let an occasional dish prepared with small amounts of alcohol bother me.

Thanks for your opinion jhana 4!

My motto, philosophy, and guiding principle: You should do what’s good, Stephen. You should do what’s good. Always choose whatever is good.

Some people feel good being that strict, their confidence goes up, their practice to. Some people feel they are being choked by the precepts, feeling they are being to hard with themselves, their confidence goes down, their practice to.

Anyways u could do research if the alcohol in that special food gets into your system or evaporates, or something else that gives u confidence in your decision, otherwise guilt will arise and that is always bad.

The heart of the path is SO simple. No need for long explanations. Give up clinging to love and hate, just rest with things as they are. That is all I do in my own practice. Do not try to become anything. Do not make yourself into anything. Do not be a meditator. Do not become enlightened. When you sit, let it be. When you walk, let it be. Grasp at nothing. Resist nothing. Of course, there are dozens of meditation techniques to develop samadhi and many kinds of vipassana. But it all comes back to this - just let it all be. Step over here where it is cool, out of the battle. - Ajahn Chah

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

---The trouble is that you think you have time------Worry is the Interest, paid in advance, on a debt you may never owe------It's not what happens to you in life that is important ~ it's what you do with it ---

Excellent reference, Chris - thanks.Another thing to consider is the total quantity of alcohol typically added to a dish, divided by the number of people consuming it. For instance, I would normally add about 1/2 glass of wine to a stew, or 1/4 to 1/3 glass to a sauce, of a whole glass of beer to a stew, any of which will serve 4 - 6 people.In baking, 1/4 cup spirits to a boiled fruit cake mixture or poured over the freshly-baked Christmas cake, for a similar number of people over several days.Desserts might be the most alcoholic food group - trifles in particular, because none of it is lost in cooking or flaming.But in all the other cases, each person is going to end up with only a tiny sip of the beer, wine or spirits. Heedlessness is therefore not going to be a problem.

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

What you ingest through cooked food would probably be in the same order of magnitude as what your body produces by itself, so I wouldn't worry too much. I once spilled pure methanol (an alcohol, though not for consumption) over my hand and it evaporated so fast that it was gone in 10-20 seconds and left my hand quite cold. That was in the time I still studied chemistry.

Suffering is asking from life what it can never give you.

mindfulness, bliss and beyond (page 8) wrote:Do not linger on the past. Do not keep carrying around coffins full of dead moments

If you see any unskillful speech (or other action) from me let me know, so I can learn from it.

When I cook and I might include a little wine in something that gets simmered - and simmered for a while.Having said that I do recall an incident over 20 years ago when I had some tira misu at a restaurant. It didn't occur to me that the dish contained brandy and I was a bit surprised that I got drunk by eating one serving. I was a bit more careful after that.kind regards,

Ben

“No lists of things to be done. The day providential to itself. The hour. There is no later. This is later. All things of grace and beauty such that one holds them to one's heart have a common provenance in pain. Their birth in grief and ashes.” - Cormac McCarthy, The Road

Learn this from the waters:in mountain clefts and chasms,loud gush the streamlets,but great rivers flow silently.- Sutta Nipata 3.725

Ben wrote:When I cook and I might include a little wine in something that gets simmered - and simmered for a while.Having said that I do recall an incident over 20 years ago when I had some tira misu at a restaurant. It didn't occur to me that the dish contained brandy and I was a bit surprised that I got drunk by eating one serving. I was a bit more careful after that.kind regards,

Ben

Yep - same problem as with trifle: quite a lot of alcohol and none of it removed by heating.A bloke I met once, years ago, told me he got booked for drink-driving after a very sedate Sunday lunch which included no alcoholic drinks but finished with a trifle made by his mother-in-law-to-be.